Stealing Ideas?
Aug. 15th, 2007 08:12 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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queensthiefThis is sort of an early While She Knits post, because I'll be gone on Friday. (sorry Checkers ~ smack me if it's excessive off topic book discussion).
The previous While She Knits mentioned Naomi Novik's Temeraire series. I had given them to my son to read, on Emma's recommendation, and he really enjoyed them as well. One comment he made was that it took a while to think of dragons the size of troop ships, after Eragon's one-person models. He's a big Eragon fan.
Clearly Novik is either a Hornblower fan, or more likely an O'Brien one. Reading the third book, I am beginning to think she may be a Dunnett fan as well. So here's my question. Is it unfair to diss Paolini and his Eragon for being a rip-off of everybody else's ideas, but to give Novik praise for what fun stuff she is doing with other people's source material? I didn't think when I read Paoline that his writing stunk out loud. And it certainly seems to have struck a chord in his target audience (MS/HS, especially boys). Novik is not obviously head and shoulders better on a line by line basis. Are we just unfair that we praise one derivative book, but slam another?
Or is it just that I prefer her source material to Paolini's. It's true, give me Forresster and Dunnett over Tolkein.
The previous While She Knits mentioned Naomi Novik's Temeraire series. I had given them to my son to read, on Emma's recommendation, and he really enjoyed them as well. One comment he made was that it took a while to think of dragons the size of troop ships, after Eragon's one-person models. He's a big Eragon fan.
Clearly Novik is either a Hornblower fan, or more likely an O'Brien one. Reading the third book, I am beginning to think she may be a Dunnett fan as well. So here's my question. Is it unfair to diss Paolini and his Eragon for being a rip-off of everybody else's ideas, but to give Novik praise for what fun stuff she is doing with other people's source material? I didn't think when I read Paoline that his writing stunk out loud. And it certainly seems to have struck a chord in his target audience (MS/HS, especially boys). Novik is not obviously head and shoulders better on a line by line basis. Are we just unfair that we praise one derivative book, but slam another?
Or is it just that I prefer her source material to Paolini's. It's true, give me Forresster and Dunnett over Tolkein.
